Torn in Two Exihibition Identities
TORN IN TWO EXIHIBITION IDENTITIES
Torn in Two: I.D. Cards
ANNIE SULLIVAN Irish Immigrant, Textile Mill worker,Massachusetts
Age 15
BEFORE My name is Annie Sullivan and I’m one of the people they call a mill girl in Lowell, Massachusetts. I guess the girls here all used to be Yankee girls, but when the Famine happened my family and a lot of others came here looking for work so a lot of us are Irish now. It’s so different from places in Europe where mill girls are beaten and paid almost nothing. At least that’s what they say. It’s true we have to work 11 hours, but the older girls had to work 12. We make twice as much as we could as servants or seamstresses and I am putting a bit of savings aside from what I send home. My parents don’t know. I told them here was a rent increase for our boarding but there really wasn’t. God forgive me! Anyway, now they say war is coming and I’m very scared.
DURING Now that the war is on, I’m worried about what will happen to the mill. My family depends on my wages and I keep hearing that the mills will close. They can’t get cotton anymore for us to make into cloth. I got a letter from James, our friend from days in Kerry, who lives in Boston. He said they are going to draft immigrants to fight the war and he’s not going. James’s family were like slaves at home on a rich man’s farm and the man wouldn’t feed them when the Famine came. I would not say I love Lowell – I miss the green open land and he farm – but at least I have wages and two meals a day for now.
AFTER Well, the mill did close. Almost everybody in Lowell was thrown out of work because most of the mills closed when the cotton stopped coming. Maybe it’s a good thing because I’ve started getting that mill girl’s cough from breathing in all those tiny little pieces of cotton
dust. A lot of us die young from it. One of the girls, a waggish one, calls us high class coal miners. The war is over now, but I have even bigger news. James asked me to marry him. He has a bit of savings and I have mine, and neither the one of us can stand the cities made of brick. So tomorrow we leave for St. Louis. We’ll join other families heading West in America but we haven’t decided exactly where yet. Maybe we will settle in Kansas, which we heard o much of before the war. We figure we’ll know the right place when we see it.
TORN IN TWO EXIHIBITION IDENTITIES
HENRY BOURNE Unioninfantryman,Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Age 19
BEFORE
Everybody next to me looks so calm. The crowd is cheering but a lot of people are crying, too. Most of those are mothers and sweethearts. My name is Henry Bourne and I’m a new Infantryman in this war. We’re marching from town to the train station to take us South. I was really excited about going and I get excited again hearing the crowd. But I wish I had a sweetheart crying for me. All the girls
will be taken by the time I get home, by those layabouts who stay behind or pay their way out. And I bet one of them will take my job at the bank. We’ve arrived at the train. They tell us we’re going to Virginia. It sounds beautiful.
DURING I can’t stop throwing up. Truth be told I’ve been crying too but I keep putting more dirt on my face to cover the tears. Why did they tell us we were going to fight a weak enemy who would disappear in six months? We ran today, like rabbits from the fox, as if we were the weak ones. We came to Bull Run and the first thing we saw were carriages and ladies and picnic baskets. People came out to watch the battle as if it were entertainment. It was great to see them run faster than we did!
My buddy Aaron, right next to me, was hit by cannon fire. God forgive me, I can hardly speak it, but it crushed him until there was nearly nothing left. I must never tell his mother. I even threw up in front of our lieutenant, but he was even younger than I am and e was throwing up too. He put his hand on my shoulder and we both wept together. I found out later that Aaron was going to marry the lieutenant’s sister.
A FTER
To Mr. Isaiah Bourne
Dear Mr. Bourne,
Your son Henry has died bravely and in combat and is now buried with honor in Petersburg, Virginia. I deeply regret this news, and hope that you will find solace in knowing that he was a patriot who served his country to the ultimate level of sacrifice. He and his comrades held the Federal forces back at Fort Gregg. By keeping them out of the city the first night of battle, we were able to evacuate and save many lives, thanks to these brave men.
He was well loved by his fellow men and could be relied upon by any and all who served with him. We will feel his loss but will remember him for his unwavering loyalty to his regiment.
I am Sir your obedient servant,
Robert Freeme, Lt.
TORN IN TWO EXIHIBITION IDENTITIES
STEPHEN HILL Confederate Soldier,North Carolina Infantry Regiment
age 18
BEFORE We arrived today for the first days of training, all of us staunch soldiers ready to fight. Then we received our arms, and you never saw so many unhappy men anyplace but a funeral. They gave us flintlock muskets! We may as well be fighting the Mexican War, if it took place in 1800! When we saw that there were no bullets they gave us blocks of lead that we are supposed to melt down and make our own bullets from. No surprise that we lost our first battle at New Berne.
Our next battle was even worse because we had new rifles, but we were cut off from the other regiments and most of us captured. I lay exhausted in the bushes and to my shame hey sent out wagons to pick up soldiers like me.
DURING We are unlucky soldiers or maybe just bad ones. We were assigned to guard an ammunition wagon and an ambulance. But the Federals were hidden like the Swamp Fox along the road. (We Tar Heels know the story of the Swamp Fox well. They hid behind trees and bushes and even a fence along the road and mowed us down with their rifles and cannon. How will this war ever be over in six months? I notice the officers don’t say that anymore. By the end of today, one in three of us were gone.
I prayed to God that night, for all of my regiment, for my family back home and especially for me. But there’s good news! We’re going to be transferred to the Light Division! And we were finally at luck in battle. We charged the federals at Gaines’ Mill and kept on charging until they retreated. But we mourn the loss of our colonel, killed by an artillery shell. Not a man didn’t weep openly for him.
AFTER Now that the war is over I am still haunted in my nightmares by our darkest day. At Chancellorsville, we were to blame for the volley of shots that killed our beloved iron
soldier, General Stonewall Jackson. General Lee mourned grievously. The next day in battle we lost more of us than any other regiment. The world will always remember that we killed our General. I was glad to be among o
the wounded. My arm, sorely infected, was cut off in the field hospital. Small punishment tease my grief at the loss of Jackson. It is my daily reminder of shame. Now home, I have seen Rosemary, my fiancée, but I shook with anxiety. How can I marry when I am unable to perform the most basic tasks? She came to me and held my face with those delicate alabaster hands, now scarred by work, and answered me without saying a word. I feel I don’t deserve her! But our whole town is rejoicing and my elderly father said the future was finally real again.
(Stephen Hill is a fictional character, but Michael C. Hardy’s article published in America’s Civil War, May 2003 issue, was very helpful in creating him.)
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH Educated Girl of Means, Civil War Nurse
Concord, Massachusetts
Age 18
BEFORE I do not know why God in His wisdom has chosen the lot of women to be so oppressed. Now that Father has died, my elder sister Lucy’s husband controls our fortunes. He is a man of no knowledge and even less intelligence and I fear that he will leave us in ruin. Mother is too stricken with grief to be of influence. What will befall us? There are no professions for us to enter. The few places for women tarnish our reputation so deeply as to be impossible. If we teach, we are considered ill‐bred. Will I be reduced to that? Is my education to mean nothing? Louisa May Alcott makes money sometimes from her stories but I have not that talent.
DURING I am shaking with excitement and fear. Louisa and I have become nurses taking care of the brave men in our Army. We won’t be paid, but it will give us important work to do, and as many of our class are doing this we will not be looked down upon for “working.” They say the Army doesn’t want us, but I hear that when they see what we can do, they will at least treat us with courtesy. I am lucky to be taken, because those recruited by the activist Dorothea Dix were required to be middle‐aged and plain, but Louisa vouched for me. I had to grow used to death and violence with no delay, and I know I will never remove the stains of gore on my apron. The wounded’s agony broke my heart and called me to give my best to them. Whether I write letters for them or hold a hand until the last breath f life, I know I am doing God’s work and serving my country. There are thousands of us nurses – surely this will bring change to our world after the war!
AFTER We are expected to return home and resume our old lives, but I cannot. No more insipid dinner conversation or having my decisions made for me by Lucy’s ridiculous husband, a coward who sidestepped the war by paying $3500 for someone else to serve. Imagine Father’s money being used for cowardice! I see them growing poorer and I am determinedto leave Concord. So I am headed to Seattle! A few girls have already gone and I will join the second journey. There I am promised a paying job as a teacher, a family who will host me, and the prospect of marriage. There are many men in Washington and far fewer in Concord. Whatever happens, I am ready for adventure and to become a real pioneer!
EXIHIBITION IDENTITIES TORN IN TWO EXIHIBITION IDENTITIES
JOHN TILDEN Non-Slave Owning Crop Farmer Georgia
Age 35
BEFORE Our leadership has lost its head by starting this war. They forget those of us who have no reason to go to war. I have never used slave labor on my farm in Georgia, nor do I live in a mansion of stately grandeur. I have ten children, all of whom work on the farm, and if they are not enough I hire the help I need. I am no Republican and I have little respect for Mr. Lincoln, but at least there is sense in that odd head of his. Imagine that Mr. Davis thinks my sons and I should go to war for the plantation owners. Everybody says this war is about the right of a state to govern itself, but then why do the same people talk more often about the impossibility of running plantations without slaves?
DURING
For the first time in the history of our country, we are to be conscripted. I guess our Confederate leadership thinks that states should be free to govern but people should not. It will not work where I come from. We will take to the woods with rifles before we join any Confederate regiment. Last night the farmers of our area met in secret to decide how to avoid being drafted. None of us can afford to hire substitutes, because the price is rising quickly and I wouldn’t be surprised if it goes as high as $5000. We can’t afford the $300 exemption fee either, and we don’t want to lie about our health to be exempt.
By the end of the night we had agreed to form our own militia to protect ourselves. Yes, we are stealing food from the plantations, because they expected to fight this rich man’s war with poor men’s blood. We even help Yankee prisoners to escape, and we all help each other to hide from the conscription.
AFTER
With God’s sharp irony governing our lives, we are finally defeated. Our real enemy was the plantation owners and conscription, and we “defeated” them. But it was General Sherman who came our way on his so‐called “March to the Sea.” He burned our farm after they took everything they could eat, ride or sell. It wasn’t much to them but it was everything to us. So now Sadie and I will start over and most of the kids will still be at home to help. We grow corn and pigs and enough crops for us to live on. I hope we will have a good year and enough to eat. The children won’t get any schooling, but Sadie says the older ones could help teach the little ones to read. We are lucky to be self‐sufficient. Just as we learned to distrust our own Confederate government, I am not easy with Andrew Johnson. I hope he will keep the promises made to the South at Appomattox and by Mr. Lincoln, but I have little faith.
TORN IN TWO EXIHIBITION IDENTITIES
ISAIAH WILKES Seminary Student, Abolitionist Roxbury, Massachusetts
Age 16
BEFORE
Can no one see the damnation of God’s fury that will descend upon us all? By all that is Holy, no man shall own another. How can he if he is to obey God’s law to love our neighbors and treat them as we would be treated? This is not only a Christian tenet, but one we share with our Jewish brethren. Preacher told us that a famous rabbi named Hillel called for the same law at the time Jesus lived. And as they both called that we shall love our God with all our soul and heart and mind, as in Deuteronomy 11:13‐21, how can we not obey? Do we not know that should God send the angels of darkness upon us we shall all perish as one, not separated into sinner and believer? Father says it is time for me to quit the seminary and find honest labor. But I believe God calls me to fight this fight against evil in His name.
DURING Our seminary is closed. Father was pleased so I pray for his soul. But I have volunteered to work for Mr. William Lloyd Garrison to help produce his newspaper, The Liberator. I tried to volunteer with an empty heart for war, but was rejected for my poor eyesight. Now I fear for our lives. Mr. Garrison has already been tried and dragged through the streets, mobbed and nearly lynched. The newspaper’s whole print run was stolen, which he could ill afford. But God’s fire is strong in him and keeps me fighting, too, even if it means working the printing press with little protection from the inks and chemicals. Mr. Garrison speaks like a powerful preacher and some people call him the nation’s conscience. Today the President announced he Emancipation Proclamation! Mr. Garrison was at a concert and they stopped the music to cheer him and Mr. Lincoln.
AFTER The war is over and my soul compels me to return to Seminary life, but the active life of Mr. Garrison compels me to wish for more human work in addition to a prayerful life. I am bound for Virginia! The Protestant Episcopal Theological Seminary in Alexandria was occupied by the Union and used to house nearly 1700 wounded soldiers and as a burial ground. There will be much work to do to reopen it and I wish to help. Father is pleased at his goal, which he considers of greater importance than “praying until you grow blind.” I continue to pray for Father and for Mother who rests in heaven.
TORN IN TWO EXIHIBITION IDENTITIES
REBECCA PARRISH
Slave - South Carolina
Age: perhaps 20
BEFORE I call myself a governess, not a slave. The only person who can be a slave is one who lets their mind be slaved. Joseph, a field hand, says it’s easy to say that when you’re an indoor slave. It’s true, my days are easier than Joseph’s. I teach ABCs and arithmetic to the little ones in the house ever since my master caught me reading. Before I was sold here, one of the boys in that house taught me to read. In the afternoon I get the older girls and the mistress ready for dinner, taking care of their hair and tightening their corsets. I caught 15‐year‐old Miranda trying to add rouge to her cheeks and I gave her a talking to. I take no mind to her pinching her cheeks to give her some color but any more than that will ruin her reputation.
DURING My heart is pounding. A bunch of us slaves were taken by the Confederates to work for the Navy, though our Mr. Smalls was hired out! We families are all below deck while topside the most daring thing I ever heard of is happening. Robert Smalls, pilot, is about to steal this boat and get out of Charleston Harbor. He took the captain’s hat and stood on deck in the dusk, with his profile and the hat fooling everyone watching as he steered us to the Union ships. He’s the best pilot on the coast and got the Planter through the shoals and knows where every mine is. We hoisted a white flag before the Union ships could fire. They welcomed us and the news of our escape spread all over the country, even to Harper’s magazine. Robert traveled all over the country and people came to hear him speak, but then he went back, became a Union pilot and was a big part of their success. We had stolen a Navy ship from right under their noses, a hundred yards from the headquarters of General Ripley!